Homing ability in a tropical Asian stingless bee is influenced by interaction between release distances and urbanisation

Abstract

1. Bee homing capacity determines the maximum distance/area from/around the nest that workers can travel to exploit resources. However, homing ranges have been hardly examined in tropical Asian stingless bee species or in relation to anthropogenic land-use changes.2. Here, we used translocation experiments, where we released marked bees at different distances from the colony, to evaluate the maximum homing distance of Tetragonula fuscobalteata in 10 different anthropogenic landscapes in Southern Thailand.3. Our results show that typical and maximum homing distances (i.e., distances where 50% and 90% of released bees failed to return, respectively) were estimated to be 240 and 595 m, respectively. We found that bee homing rates were not affected by forest proximity or surrounding landscape composition within 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600 m radii, but that they were influenced by the interaction between release distances from the colony and the proportion of urbanised cover at a 100 m radius. Bee homing rates decreased with increasing release distances for colonies placed in areas with higher proportions of urbanised land within a 100 m radius.4. This suggests that urbanised areas (e.g., urban or suburban gardens, home gardens, backyards) provided sufficient food resources close to colonies, resulting in smaller foraging ranges.